


The Afterlife is Most Definitely No Parade

by CoffeesForFuckers



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: AU, Afterlife, Crying, Death, Denial, Depressing, Depression, Goodbyes, Letters, Love, Lust, M/M, Notes, Peterick, Random - Freeform, Sad, Sadness, Smile, Suffering, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, love is love, watching the person you love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 20:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11365023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeesForFuckers/pseuds/CoffeesForFuckers
Summary: It's no secret that Peter Wentz has depression nor was it a secret that he thought about death a lot.He doesn't understand that suicide doesn't only effect him. Maybe if he thought more and did less then he would realize the only reason he was alive in the first place should've been the reason to keep living because watching the person you love the most suffer because of your stupidity and lack of thinking is worse than being alive.





	The Afterlife is Most Definitely No Parade

**Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III**

**Found alone in bathroom, unresponsive. - 7:19am.**

**Time of death - 8:02am, June 27th, 2013.**

He knew that it couldn’t be real. It just wasn’t, he’d held his hand in the hospital room, the ‘dead-man’ said he loved him, He know he did, even though everybody else says he didn’t, that it was impossible. They don’t know, of course they didn’t know. He wasn’t just hearing things, He knew he wasn’t.

They said that the man had been brain dead for hours before they pulled the plug, since before his body was even acknowledge to be on that bathroom floor.

If only he’d stayed over last night, he couldn't help but to think.

So many what if’s and not enough answers arose within him. 

He didn't cry, he didn't weep, he didn't shed a tear over the death of the man he planned to marry. He even had the ring and all, yet he didn't even feel the slightest bit of pain.

The days rolled over him and he felt nothing. He'd stopped at the home that his love had left the world in, it just felt like nothing was wrong, as if he were away on vacation. He cleaned the bathroom, washing the blood and water away, replacing the mats on the floor that were now stained and ruined.

It was a bit eerie for him to not return home in the evenings, though it didn't raise any red flags in his mind.

The wake comes and even seeing him laid out in his pretty suit, it still doesn't make him cry. He brought the ring and put it on the numb, too-cold fingers of the deadman, they were meant to be married but this was as good as it would ever be. To him it felt like the wedding was to be planned. An undetermined date that would never come.

Seeing people with tears unable to be stopped, choked up and barely able to breathe, it made him feel like he was missing something. He still wasn't sad, it just felt weird. He just wanted to scream, to yell at all the watery-eyed people and tell them they're crazy. His lover wasn't dead. No way was the love of his life, dead.

Then came the funeral. He rode in the limousine with his lovers’ family. They cried, holding each other like something bad had happened. He didn't get it, he couldn't be dead, it was impossible. They looked at him with these alienated stares as he did not weep for the loss of something so important. He was numb to the ache.

He really did try to get this thought through his head that maybe the person he wanted to spend his life with was truly gone. It didn't work. There was no underlying sadness or any aching pain that caused his chest to burn like there should've been. 

He sits with an unmovable stillness as he stares down the sleek black and red coffin. He can't stop remembering that scene from an old video they'd shot. He kept thinking that his love would rise from that death-box like nothing happened, like it was all a stupid dream and he'd wake up soon and they'd all rush to a gig, just like the video. 

He knew that it wasn't happening as they lowered the coffin deep into the ground before the headstone that read;

**_Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz |||_ **

**_“If heaven's grief, brings hell’s reign, then I'd trade all my tomorrow's, for just one yesterday.”_ **

He was the one that requested that be put there, it was true, something the man he loved had once said to him when things were going wrong. His love wrote a song with it, a song that nobody could ever hear. It was for him and only him now.

He may not have cried but he stayed the longest. Once they all were gone he leaned against the headstone, resting his head on the cool rock.

“ _ I love you.” _ He breathes out softly with no emotion in his words. He felt like he just had to do this, missing the person who was his world more than he thought. He couldn't wait to hug the deadman again, his brain was convinced he would hold him again.

It had been so long since his lover had touched his skin and kissed his mouth, it felt wrong. He missed the smell of the man who held his heart and he went to the place he always imagined sharing with his other half. 

Laying on the bed, he watches the curtains sway from the light breeze flowing from the window that was open just a crack. That's when he suddenly knew.

His everything was never coming back, never again would he feel the soft touch of his beautiful lover’s hands. He wouldn't feel the bumped calloused tips of his fingers run over his skin or gentle warm breaths caressing his skin late in the evening while the man he loved so dearly held him. Never again would he look into those brown eyes or kiss those soft lips. Nor would his face get sore and raw from the coarse stubble on his love’s mouth. 

He wouldn't hear the smooth caramel sounding voice that he’d become so accustomed to. No more smiles, no more heavenly laughter. He would never feel the dark brown, burned locks of short curls that rested on the man's head, he could never bury his face into the naturally tanned boy and inhale his perfect scent again.

Never again could he simply be with  _ his  _ human. 

He just wanted to hear the sound of his name being said by his favorite person one more time.

Just one more  _ ‘I love you’  _ is what he now begged for as all those tears that never came ran down his plump, reddened cheeks. He wheezed heavily and choked as the pain smacked him so hard that it felt like everything in him had shattered to bits. The tears pooled down him and onto his neck and shirt and they also streamed down the sides of his face and onto his lover’s old bed.

He grasped the pillow that his lover had once slept on and held it against himself, curling up and trying to be as small as possible.

He just wanted to disappear.

His body shook hard and his chest heaved as he struggled to keep breathing between hysterical sobs. He was crying the way that people do when they're alone at night and just can't go on, they try to stay quiet but the sobs just pour out of them like water from the tap. He can't stop crying and the pain just gets worse and worse with each thing that reminds him of the man he held so dear.

All the what if’s were now so serious.

_ What if I stayed with him?  _

_ What if I got here earlier? _

_ What if I tried harder? _

_ What if… _

_ What if… _

He kept crying so hard that he lost his voice, that he could barely walk, that he couldn't see anything but the pooled tears in his eyes and the deformed pillow that his face was shoved deep into.

It hurt to watch him suffer.

Especially when it was all my fault.

Regret.

I regret taking my life, I regret hurting the man I want a life with.

I hadn’t even known I was dead until I saw myself in that casket. I was really an idiot wasn’t I?

The funny thing about it all is that before, I always said I regret not taking all the pills in that parking lot, that I regret calling someone to say my goodbyes instead of just simply writing them.

Now that I've done (almost) all of that and succeeded in it, I now wish I wasn’t so stupid. I ruined everything. I have just realized that I miss living even though it was like a personal hell for me to keep going each day.

I just wanted to hug him.

_ Oh, Patrick… I’m so sorry… _

I feel tears prick at my eyes. I can’t cry anymore since I’m dead but I can still  _ almost _ cry. It hurts so bad to watch the man I love with all my non-beating heart be so hurt over something so stupid that I did.

I lay on the bed next to him and hold him, he shivers, which makes me smile. He can feel me, kind of.

_ I love you, Patrick. _

He whimpers. I just wanted to really be there for him. Like he said all the time, I would always be there to get him out of the trouble that I got him into.

This is the one time that I couldn’t.

|||

I followed him and he didn’t even know. I watched over him like some kind of guardian angel. Apparently there was no heaven nor hell, you just wander the earth for all eternity, alone. This is what I’ve concluded at least.

I also explored the house sometimes. I liked to lay on the bed and pretend I could still smell his sweet scent and pretend I could still feel his touch and kiss his mouth and tell him over and over that he’s mine and that I love him more than anything.

He’d been writing quite a lot, I knew that Fall Out Boy had broken-up after my passing. It was confusing to me why he was writing so much, he swore he’d never go solo again.

I had noticed a few papers strewn about the house that would prove otherwise.

The most confusing thing in my mind was time. I didn’t sleep and somehow days, weeks and even months pass by in a night. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I died anymore. 

He’s been doing a little better than he had been that day it all came to him. Sometimes though he seems to have such bad days that he can’t even get out of bed. Today he’s doing well and it hurts to see that but makes me happy that he can be okay.

He’d taken my dogs as his own and both Hemingway and Rigby seemed to be happy with him. They were taking good care of Patrick for me and I was so thankful for that. 

I follow after him as he goes for a walk, I kick at the pebbles on the sidewalk and they don’t move, just passing right through my feet. I didn’t even really walk on the ground anymore, I just float everywhere. He takes a different route than normal while walking the dogs today. It’s a long walk and I know if I actually were walking my legs would be killing me.

We get to a cemetery and it takes me a moment to realize why he’d lead me there. He steps up to my grave and it feels so wrong to be looking at my name on a headstone. He runs his hand over the letters carefully.

_ “I’m sorry it took so long to visit… I can’t stay long…”  _ His voice sounds so good. He always sounds so warm. He places an envelope on the ground, it says my name in pretty handwriting that I knew wasn’t Patrick’s,  _ “I love you, baby.”  _  He pats the stone and walks off, I can tell he’s crying. 

I sit down and concentrate on the letter, I reach out and grasp it, somehow it works and I get the envelope open. I tug the letter out and it slips through my fingers and onto the grass below. I lean over it and read it to myself.

**_Dear  Pete,_ **

**_I miss you… a lot… I don't know how I've made it without you, I just want you back. It still feels so wrong to be without you, even after almost a year. Hemingway and Rigby miss you too, sometimes I swear I can hear your voice, I think they can too… I hope you're still with me somehow, I hope you know how much I still love you._ **

**_My therapist has told me to try writing you notes and stuff so I tried. I don't really know what to say even though you'll never get to read it._ **

**_It's so lonely here without you. Joe and Andy come visit a lot to check on me so you don't have to worry about me. I'm doing okay, some days are worse than others._ **

**_I started writing again, songs, music, stories… It’s been making me feel a bit better. I know I said never again but I just need anything to stop myself from giving into the pain and joining you..._ **

**_I just want to know why you did it? Why did you leave me? I thought you loved me? I'm sorry I wasn't there for you…_ **

**_With all my love,_ **

**_Pat._ **

If I could cry, I would be sobbing rivers. I manage to focus on a rock hard enough to place it on the letter so it couldn’t blow away in the wind.

That was enough of an adventure for today, I was ready to go back home.

|||

One thing that I’ve noticed is that my wrists hurt sometimes, like an unbearable burning feeling and others they feel freezing cold and here and there, they’ll just be numb like the rest of me. So much about being dead was so confusing. In lots of ways, living was easier. 

I hadn’t run into any other souls, I just couldn’t figure out why I was here still. Was there a mistake?

Could this be hell for me?

I didn’t get it.

He was up late tonight. I think he was at least, it said on the clocks that it was nearly three in the morning. I didn’t know what day it was, what year or even the season. I couldn’t feel temperature to know what time of year it was. I was always cold, so damn cold.

I sit up on the counter, he paces a lot, murmuring stuff to himself. He seems so distressed.

_ Oh, Patrick… Baby, please just get some rest. Nothing is so important that it should ruin your sleep. I love you and all but you’re such a hassle to watch over. _

He seems to notice my voice and he looks around, he shakes his head and the dogs start barking at me. They notice me a lot, it’s nice to be acknowledged even if it is only from animals. 

He lets out a gentle sigh and runs his fingers through his hair, I’m not sure if it was at himself or the noise from the dogs.

_ Hemmy, Rigby, don’t stress him out too much. Get him to bed for me. _

I smile as he yawns sleepily, he was precious. 

He calls the dogs and starts up the stairs of the house. He’d bought my old home after I died, unable to let go. I wouldn’t be able to either.

I follow them up and watch him do all his nightly things before crawling under the covers. I watch over him for a bit and he looks so at peace. I reach out and concentrate on my fingers as I run them over his smooth cheeks.

Warm, god, he’s so warm. I can’t help but lean into him and my body slides through and to the other side of the bed. It hurts.

He sits up and looks around, shivering. I forgot that it would make him too cold if I did that. He touches his cheek and frowns, falling back to his bed.

He made me wish that I was alive.

Why was I stuck watching this? Why could my death not end the pain? The suffering? I can’t do this.

I needed somebody to come explain this whole death thing to me before I find a way to kill myself twice.

|||

I had blinked and 3 years passed by, literally.

I was just watching him, sat on the floor, passing the ball back and forth between Hemingway and Rigby and now he’s gone and things are moved around. The calendar is the first thing I see, it’s June of 2018, there's a date circled on the calendar.

It was June 27th. 

I go to the kitchen table where I spot a half written letter. I read the beginning out of curiosity;

**_Dearest Pete,_ **

**_5 years… I don’t know how I’ve made it 5 years without you here. Well, almost. Two weeks from now it will be. I still can’t believe you’re gone. I still think that I’m going to wake up from a nightmare, that you’ll be fine. I’ve been doing good lately. I still have my bad days, my heart is all yours to this day and it always will be…_ **

**_I’m singing again. I made a new album and I even published a book! I hope you’re proud of me wherever you are. I can’t wait to tell you all about it someday in the afterlife. This may all seem so good, like I’m doing better without you but I would give it all back just to hear you say my name one more time…_ **

There letter cuts off there, some smeared pieces of the paper from tears stand out near the end of what was written. I wished he could give it up for me but I knew it was wrong of me. At the same time I just wanted him to be happy, I wanted him to have this because he seemed better off with what he had now than what he had then.

Rigby and Hemingway run into the room, barking at me. I let out a sigh of my non-existent breath.

_ Don’t bother Pat over something he can’t even see. _

He enters the room and I gasp. He’s so scrawny, I barely recognize him. His lip is pierced along with his nose, ears and eyebrows. His clothes are far too big for his tiny body. He was obviously starving himself.

_ Patrick… Oh… God, Patrick, what have you done?  _

I can tell he notices my voice but can’t tell what it is. He huffs and tells the dogs to knock it off because nothing was there.

I was there.

Oh well.

Rigby got his ball and hurries back to me, dropping it at my feet. I roll my eyes, for the smarter of the two, he was pretty dumb.

Patrick coughs and rubs at his eyes sleepily as he makes his way to the kitchen and getting himself coffee. I hop up onto the counter and get a closer look at him. He looks ill.

His head drops to rest against the counter.

_ “I want him back…”  _ I can hear that he’s crying,  _ “I miss you so much… I can’t do this… Oh god… I need him… It just gets worse the longer he’s gone…”  _ He trembles and I just have to hold him.

I focus as hard as a dead man can and grab onto him as tight as I could. It doesn’t last long but it’s long enough for me to know I helped, even if it’s just a little. I phase through him and fall to the floor. He stands up straight, shivering like crazy but he’s not cold, he looks so warm. He pulls his arms around himself, holding the feeling that I had pushed onto him.

He was so warm.

|||

My feet swished in and out of the cabinets of the counter I was sat atop. Hemmingway was seated below me. 

He had been getting better, he as eating, still much too thin but there was at least some meat on his bones. His cheeks didn’t sag over his face awkwardly anymore either. He looked somewhat healthy again. 

Either way, he still looked beautiful to me. Sometimes I could swear my heart started beating again from his grin. 

Lately I had started vividly remembering death. It was so euphoric. Probably because when I actually died I wasn’t struggling. 

I lay back on the countertop and close my eyes. I wanted to know what had happened and I thought that maybe now was the right time to find out.

_ I sink into the bath. The water is hot, so hot that it burns but it doesn’t matter anyway. The note was written and it was all over. I had taken some pills just to aid in the process of everything shutting down. I sigh and grab the sharpened knife, which happened to be all I had. Patrick had removed all the razors after the first attempt. _

_ I play with it for a bit, thinking more than I wanted to. I thought the pills would fog my mind so this hesitation wouldn’t happen. I was wrong, as always… _

_ I’m worthless and everybody would be better without me. That’s what it all came down to. I was like a brick tied to Patrick’s ankle, dragging him under, drowning him slowly. I couldn’t ruin him like I ruined me and everything else.  _

_ I never saw a future for myself, I tried to look forward, I tried to think of my wedding, my future kids, but nothing ever came because it never would. I may as well just kill myself while I’m ahead. _

_ I bring the blade to my wrist and press down. I start to pull it but remove it from my skin as nerves build. What if I got found? _

_ I try again and the same thing happens. I try again and again and again, every time I pull back because I’m weak… _

_ Pathetic. _

_ I switch hands and try the other wrist and the same thing happens all over. The bathwater is tinted pink from the stinging scrapes from the blade. I get frustrated with myself and start to cry. I can’t help myself as I bawl my eyes out. _

_ “Why can’t I do anything right!?” I shout so loud that I swear that everybody in the neighborhood could hear me in the quiet of the evening, “I can’t even kill myself right! God-... Why can’t I just die!?” I hiccup. _

_ The anger towards myself builds and I take the blade and slice open my skin diagonally down my arm, blood pools out and into the water. I switch to do it to the other wrist now as well. The water burns the cut and I wince,  I don’t care anymore.  _

_ I slash my other arm multiple times. So much blood comes pouring from me, the bath water turns a dark red too fast. _

_ My head gets fuzzy and I stand, getting out of the bath, only to slip and fall, banging my head on the side of the sink. Blood goes everywhere, I stumble to my feet as I try to contemplate where I wished to die. _

_ I get back into the water and I’m so tired. I slip under the surface of the water. It feels like I’m under there for hours before my lungs burn and I choke, coughing blood all over, my body jerks up and I flop onto my side, my arms going out of the tub, while my face is drooped into the water. Blood pours from my mouth as I cough and sputter, gulping water into my lungs until it goes black and my body falls limp and my head falls back, just out of the water. I sucked in a few breaths and vomited water and blood all over myself, only to choke on it from the position I was in. _

_ Then there's nothing. _

I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling for a long, long time as I try to process my death. I feel sick to my stomach even though that was technically impossible. I already was impossible so I didn’t really question it anymore.

He was singing an unfamiliar song. Something new, I suppose. It calmed me down, he always calmed me down when I was this distraught.

I knew I couldn’t keep going like this and I knew that there was only one way to end it now.

|||

I couldn’t keep living as this deadman stuck in purgatory. I just couldn’t watch my world crumble around me any longer. Today I say my goodbyes before I set out to make my way to what I hoped to be The Black Parade.

I play with Hemingway and Rigby as best I can. I throw the ball a few times before I get too drained from the focused energy. I kiss them both on their heads and scratch their bellies as farewells. 

Patrick is special. I need to give him a proper final goodbye when he wakes up in the morning. I watch him sleep and manage to write him a little note.

**_Watching over you has been the best time of my_ ** **_life_ ** **_death. I must move on to The Black Parade._ **

**_See you in another life,_ **

**_Xx Pete._ **

He’s up later than usual but I don’t mind. He sits up and rubs at his eyes. He pulls his hands away to stretch and yawn, opening those blue eyes of his. I’m sat across from him but, of course, he doesn’t know. I use the last of my strength to cup his face and kiss him.

_ Goodbye, Baby. Keep smiling. _

I whispered into his ear and I know he heard my from the tears that formed in his eyes.

I get to the bathroom that I’d died in, I hadn’t been near it since the day I passed and I knew that Patrick had cleaned it. Though, as I pass through the door it looks as it did that day. It was drenched in blood and red tinted water, I swallow hard even though I have nothing to swallow.

My eyes fall upon myself and I wince, stumbling and falling back, I hit the door but don’t faze through it.

I take cautious steps to my body and shut my eyes, grabbing onto the limp body of myself. As my non-existent hand touches my cold, lifeless arm, my eyes roll back and I feel this rush, a form of high as my head is thrown back. 

Cold.

So cold.

|||

I gasp as I sit up, coughing up the water from my lungs, heaving up the pills as the cuts scar over immediately.

My fingers go around my throat as I breathe.

_ I’m breathing. _

And then I burst into tears.

I fumble from the water and drain the tub, rushing to get clothes on. I had to see  _ my  _ Patrick. I had to see my baby.

I’m running and can feel the ground under my feet, the cool air of the summer morning, my lungs burning for air. I have one more chance and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

I’m pounding on his door at three in the morning. I’m sopping wet, choking to death on the lack of air in my probably damaged lungs and shaking like an elderly man.

“Pete? What happened to you? You’re a mess!” He gasps as the door opens. I throw myself onto him, holding onto him with my all, I expect to fall through him and float to the floor, but I don’t.

“I love you, Patrick… God, I love you, Patrick.” I bawl into him.

He’s confused, I mean, I would be too. I am and all of this happened to me and not him. All that mattered now was that I got to try again for my beautiful Patrick.

“Get in here and dry off, you’re going to get sick you idiot.” Those words make me feel like never before.

I’m truly alive.

He dries me off and calms me down, forcing me to try to sleep, which I don’t mind. I’m still freezing from everything that happened and he was  _ so warm.  _

“Patrick.” I mumble into his chest where my face was pushed.

“Yes, Pete.” He hums, slightly annoyed that I wasn’t allowing him to sleep.

“I’ll never try to take my life again.” I swear to him. Never would I leave him again.

“What made you think of that?” He shifts to look at me.

“It’s a long story, Pat… A long, very crazy story that you’d never believe. So let’s just say that I know that living is much easier than being dead and lonely.”

“Okay, baby. Get some sleep and I’ll ask more about it another time.” He kisses the top of my head and I nearly cry.

Actually, I do cry.

I cry against him as I smell his scent that I missed more than anything, as I kiss his soft mouth again and caress his smooth skin… 

“And, Pete?” I’m almost asleep but hear his smooth voice, “Could you just say my name one more time?”


End file.
